The Need for Consultation: Before and After

The following video features new Vancouver city councillor Colleen Hardwick speaking to the amendment, drawn from the “Making Room” housing program — itself an outcome of the staff-driven 10-year Housing Vancouver Strategy — that would allow duplexes across the city.

It’s actually two parts, featuring…

Candidate Hardwick at a public hearing in September, on concerns about the process used to approve the original “duplex motion”; and

Councillor Hardwick addressing the council amendment about a process, proposed in November, to facilitate the rescinding of the motion.

(Hint: The first part is not like the second part.)

Gord’s take:

Political observers know there’s such a thing as a ‘consultation gap’ – the distance between the position a candidate has on consultation before and after an election.

Before: More consultation is better when properly and fairly conducted, open to all, and not pre-determined. After: the election is sufficient.

It’s unlikely there is a candidate who has so quickly made the leap as Colleen Hardwick.